Xavi Vierge claimed an important tenth place to get his season back on track at a dramatic British Grand Prix as Alex Márquez continues to lead the Moto2 World Championship despite suffering early misfortune at Silverstone.

• A revised running order for the British Grand Prix meant the 18-lap Moto2 race got underway at 14:30 in perfect conditions and ambient temperatures of 32 degrees.
• The Team Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS team-mates endured mixed fortunes at the resurfaced Silverstone Circuit with Xavi Vierge completing his main aim of collecting much needed points after 4 consecutive DNFs. Alex Márquez suffered misfortune, crashing out of the lead on lap 6.

Alex Márquez, DNF

• Starting from his 3rd pole position of the season, Márquez began the 18-lap outing brilliantly, leading Navarro in the early laps.
• The pair pulled clear from the battle for 3rd until Márquez made an uncharacteristic mistake at turn 16 on lap six.
• Unable to re-start, Márquez suffered his first DNF since June. He still leads the Moto2 Championship by a healthy 35 points.

“It was my first mistake all year.  It keeps our feet on the ground”

“It was my first mistake all year. It’s a shame because the weekend was so positive. It was one of the best ones to try and win the race so I had extra confidence. It keeps our feet on the ground. When everything is easy you think, ‘We can do this every day.’ It’s a lesson. We can learn a lot from this. And I want to say sorry to the team because they gave me the perfect bike to win the race.”

Xavi Vierge, 10th, +13.753 s.

• Vierge started brilliantly from the middle of the second row and exited the first turn in 3rd place, behind team-mate Márquez and Jorge Navarro.
• Having prioritised securing points this weekend, Vierge rode intelligently but lost several positions from laps 3 to 7.
• The Catalan was then engaged in an exciting fight for 9th place. In the end he finished a strong 10th, 13.7 seconds behind race winner Augusto Fernandez.  

“We started really well but we didn’t have the pace to fight for the victory”

“The first objective of this weekend was to try and finish the race. Of course we didn’t get the result we wanted but I’m happy. We knew we had the potential in the first laps. We started really well but we didn’t have the pace to fight for the victory. I stayed a bit too calm after the last races, and some other riders pushed me back and I lost many seconds. Now we have a lot of data to understand why we had a lot of problems in the race, but I’m happy that, after four races, I could make a good weekend and finish the race. Now we have time in front of us to work and I want to arrive at Misano fighting for the top five.”

Joan Olive, Team Manager

“Overall it was a pity for Alex. He was leading the race. We saw the first mistake by him all year and it happened here. In a very long year with many races these things can happen. So it’s not a big problem at the moment. We need to learn from it and use it as a reminder for the future. We have to keep working at this level. On the other side I’m happy for Xavi that he could finish the race after many weekends of bad luck. This is positive and now he can focus on the next races and keep improving.”